Fans of the band SLAYER say they’ll attack any members of the political protest group “Westboro Baptist Church” who try to picket the funeral of the band’s guitarist Jeff Hanneman. What initially appeared to be a mere joke among the band’s fans on Facebook has since turned into more specific threats on Twitter. “Please try to get near his funeral,” one Slayer fan tweeted the Westboro group, referring to them as an expletive. “You want to see god, you want to see evil? Try it!” The furor erupted a day after Westboro said it would make Hanneman’s funeral the latest in a long line of which it’s attempted to politicize.
Westboro Baptist Church is not an actual church but instead a creation of a family in Kansas whose sole purpose is to create scenes at high profile American funerals to raise awareness for their anti-gay agenda. Its funeral protests appear to have no connection to whether the deceased was homosexual (Hanneman was straight), having also recently targeted the funerals of the Sandy Hook victims and Boston Marathon victims. Although Westboro is not recognized by or affiliated with any actual baptist churches, it’s still legally able to use the “baptist” name.
Slayer fans aren’t the first group to threaten retaliation against Westboro Baptist Church for its funeral protests. Hacker group Anonymous send people to physically block the protesters from the Sandy Hook funerals, and also hacked the group’s website. If Westboro does find itself in a physical confrontation at Jeff Hanneman’s funeral, our money is on the Slayer fans coming out victorious.
Source: stableytimes.com
http://www.slayer.net/us/jeff-hanneman
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